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2000s: Your first day back at work? Not as bad as for Lotte in the Amsterdam police
A Cold Case in Amsterdam
What you need to know before your trail
Dutch police detective Lotte Meerman returns to work after four months of painful recovery after she was shot in the line of duty – yet not all her colleagues are happy to see her.
Office politics aside, Lotte is called to investigate a worker’s fall from the roof on a building site in the centre of Amsterdam. Frank Stapel’s tragic accident becomes suspicious when Tessa, his widow, discovers human bones in her husband’s left-luggage locker at Amsterdam Central. To Lotte, this changes the course of her investigation from fatal accident to potential murder.
When forensics discover the skeleton dates back to the Second World War, the rest of the team are convinced that Lotte is wasting everybody’s time by insisting this somehow ties in with the Frank’s death, but then it is discovered that some of the bones are less than a decade old . . . and although vindicated for pursuing the cold case, Lotte finds that the investigation takes a dark and sinister turn, linking an old war crime to events in the much more recent past.
Travel Guide
Amsterdam
Centraal station
The central station in Amsterdam is an iconic building. A way in and out of the city. Close to the centre of the city. Everyone who arrives in the city walks out of here and depending on the direction you take, depends on which side of the city you see:
“Amsterdam Centraal station newly restored main hall formed the high ceilinged nave of this nineteenth-century cathedral for public transport I crossed the blue and white patterned tiled floor and skirted past mobiles chicanes of students and tourist. Before the station improvements, a departure board would rattle its turning metal strips whenever a train left. I missed the sound”
“The stored luggage area was a 1970s throwback with strip lightening and bad air. There seems little oxygen in the room but plenty of disregarded chewing gum.”
The canals
This is a city of dirty canals, canals which swallow secrets, bury others and control the city’s traffic flow, people’s lives and become the canals lit up by the red lights of the night. Who knows who is wandering, waiting, hiding here…
“Then, like a river that had burst its banks, Amsterdam had outgrown its canal rings and no longer restricted for space, spread more widely. Roads now ahead enough space for cars to pass each other.”
“You could easily get stuck for half an hour on the canal. It was the risk of driving along here, when there was only enough room for one car.”
Booktrail Boarding Pass: A Cold Case in Amsterdam
Author/Guide: Anja de Jager Destination: Amsterdam Departure Time: 2000s
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